The present invention relates to an optical pickup apparatus using a laser beam.
Recently, an optical disk memory device, in which an optical disk is used as an optical memory medium, has been proposed. In this optical disk, a recording track is formed on a data memory face of the disk and has a fine structure in which the track width is about 1 .mu.m and the track pitch is about 2 .mu.m for example. A laser beam having spot diameter about 1 .mu.m is irradiated onto this recording track.
The data are stored by modulating the intensity of the laser beam corresponding to the data to be recorded while the optical disk is rotated. The stored data are reproduced by detecting the change in intensity level of a reflected light from the data memory face of the laser beam.
The optical pickup makes the laser beam to follow the recording track and focuses the beam onto a spot having a predetermined size and further forms an error signal and a reproducing signal for servo control.
In such an optical pickup, an optical disk cannot be restrained from being deteriorated when no accessing operation is performed with respect to the optical disk and it takes much time to perform the accessing operation.